Fred Rogers Acceptance Speech - 1997

Our neighbor didn’t die, he was just needed someplace else.

He took a moment that was about recognizing him and turned it into a moment to recognize everyone who was there and everyone who made it possible for him to do what he does. If you want a perfect example of why he is so fondly remembered and such a great person, it’s tough to find a better one than this.

I’m going to need y’all to stop putting the stuff on my dash and reducing me to a pile of tears. I swear Mr. Rogers just instantly turns on the faucet for me.

Just look at the faces on the audience. You can tell how moved they are to think of the people who helped them along the way. Maybe they were thinking of a grandmother or a sibling or a best friend or kindly neighbor. He made that moment so real for all of them.

“Early this year, when television handed him its highest honor, he responded by telling television— gently, of course— to just shut up for once, and television listened. He had already won his third Daytime Emmy, and now he went onstage to accept Emmy’s Lifetime Achievement Award, and there, in front of all the soap-opera stars and talk-show sinceratrons, in front of all the jutting man-tanned jaws and jutting saltwater bosoms, he made his small bow and said into the microphone, ‘All of us have special ones who have loved us into being. Would you just take, along with me, ten seconds to think of the people who have helped you become who you are… Ten seconds of silence.’ And then he lifted his wrist, and looked at the audience, and looked at his watch, and said softly, ‘I’ll watch the time,’ and there was, at first, a small whoop from the crowd, a giddy, strangled hiccup of laughter, as people realized that he wasn’t kidding, that Mister Rogers was not some convenient eunuch but rather a man, an authority figure who actually expected them to do what he asked… and so they did. One second, two seconds, three seconds… and now the jaws clenched, and the bosoms heaved, and the mascara ran, and the tears fell upon the beglittered gathering like rain leaking down a crystal chandelier, and Mister Rogers finally looked up from his watch and said, ‘May God be with you’ to all his vanquished children.“ - Tom Junod, Esquire

I love the idea of Mr. Rogers being an authority figure you wouldn’t dare disobey, not out of fear but out of pure, overflowing, deep respect. To disappoint him is unfathomable.

Note also that normally in the face of pure silence, the orchestra would be expected to play him off.

They didn’t.

Bague “Fronde de Fougère” d'Alfons Mucha avec opale, 1905-09.

GUYS I AM CRYING!!!!!! NEW FOOTAGE FROM TGCF DONGHUA AND NEW LINES OMG

I mean this sincerely: some of you need to jerk off more and think less

Moebius

shipping two characters not in a romantic way and not in a platonic way but in a secret third way

I am not the divine masculine or the divine feminine I am the divine comedy and you will address me as such

pronouns: hee/hee

Explain yourself.

some people might not have seen all of them yet

Madonna by Steven Meisel (1984)

they match each other’s freak to a degree that is dangerous to the public

Queer (2024) // dir. Luca Guadagnino

the spirit is not willing and the flesh it is not so into the idea either

Another great thing about stevetony is that it is simultaneously old man yaoi and age-gap relationship. Steve Rogers is a hot young stud but he’s also a grandpa who wears plaid and beige trousers. Tony stark is younger than him but he’s also older than him but it depends on what field of science you study. Who else is doing it like them.